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Clarifying Your Mission Statement
By Steve Sjogren | June 5, 2006
Discovering one’s personal and corporate “mission statement” has been all the rage for the past several years. I have read a number of books that aim to help a reader specify his or her statement.
If the number of articles and books that are being released equates to the numbers of conversations and the amount of staff meeting time this topic is occupying, then I have noticed that the interest in mission statements has waned in just the past couple of years.
Perhaps this idea was new and exciting and people were just jumping onboard with the concept a few years ago and now it is a regular practice. One thing is for sure: Without great clarity of one’s reason for being, with the same level of clarify one has at the organizational level, effectiveness will be significantly hindered.
Great leaders throughout history showed us a number of important lessons about how they arrived at their place of being able to make an ongoing contribution. One of the constants in all significant leaders is single-minded persistence in the pursuit of a specific mission.
This week I was watching one of those behind the scenes network news shows that tells the news at a more in-depth level. This night’s topic was success and how various people attained it. Each person had a unique story, but all had one thing in common – they had a dogged determination that just wouldn’t quit. They kept at the development of their idea or skill until they had risen to the top of their game.
One person featured was Jon Bon Jovi. He spoke with determination about how he had been cursed by teacher after teacher, told that he would never amount to anything, that he had no talent. But he paid no attention to them. The one thing he had going for him that no one can underestimate is sheer grit and determination. To date he has sold over 150 million albums and has played major roles in a number of hit movies. He has been married to his high school sweetheart for twenty-seven years. He is a success in anyone’s book.
Steve Sjogren
Topics: Leadership, Clarity |
